I received the following email from someone identifying him/herself as Real Person, who had apparently read my article, The Psychological Solution to the Stigma of Obesity, and didn't like it. The article is written respectfully and is based on ideas that any decent Cognitive Behavior therapist or Rational Emotive therapist would whole-heartedly advocate. (I just reread it, and I happen to think it is quite good. I believe it will help any obese person who is willing to face reality.) The subject line of the email was, Sometimes the freest speech is silence. What this writer obviously wants, as you will see, is my silence, not his/her own, God forbid.
And the greatest freedom is to not have to listen to you! You know nothing. Some cute slogan and a soapbox and you're off... There needs to be an anti-bullying movement in every heart, everywhere! It's called common decency and respect for others. With your help, and the idiocy of bureaucrats, people have divorced their own actions from any sense of responsibility. Who are you to say that the stigma of obesity isn't worse than the obesity itself? Cruel words lead to cruel actions. It's just too bad that the gentlest souls far too often direct those actions toward themselves. Then idiots like you turn around and blame them. Do the world a favor and just shut up. Listen for a change. You might be surprised at what you haven't heard.
This person insists there must be decency and respect for everyone. Except, of course, to me, because she doesn't agree with me. She doesn't question her right to be as nasty and insulting to me as she wishes.
I received the following comment to my blog entry, The "Perfect" Anti-Bully Law, from someone identifying herself as Jeannette:
You have either no understanding or no experience - probably both - of any kind of bullying behaviour that reaches deeper than mild irritation. There are few people for whom the usual daily small and sometimes painful lessons of childhood - do not give them sufficient life skills to deal with the kind of bullying your 'booklet' describes. I checked out your infallible rules. Complete nonsense....I have listened with too much patience already to voices like yours, who recommend these simplistic solutions - ideas from people who - on finding themselves in any similar situation - would have not the slightest idea of any way to cope, and would be brought down very low by it....If you have never experienced that - you may not hope to understand how your article sounds, like nonsense, to anyone who has.
You have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt to harrass those who try to protect the lives of children and adults from one of the most pernicious ills of our time.
This intelligent writer believes that since I am criticizing the failing anti-bully movement, trying to wake the public up to the folly of anti-bully laws, and providing free advice that has helped countless people throughout the world successully deal with bullying, I am somehow "harassing" her. Have I ever done a thing to stop her--or anyone else--from trying to protect children from each other? It is not I who is fighting for laws that force us to think or behave in a certain way.
She says I "have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt..." Absolutely no right whatsoever?! How about the First Amendment?! But Freedom of Speech is dead, and even the most educated people today have forgotten it. These anti-bully activists who are so dead set against nastiness have no hesitation to be nasty to anyone they don't agree with. Only one point of view is permitted today. The only Freedom of Speech we have today is to say things that the anti-bully crusaders approve of. Three cheers for the demise of democracy!
If you haven't already viewed these videos, I invite you to see the power of Freedom of Speech in action. Two of the three sample videos from my Victim-Proof Your School program that can be viewed on my website demonstrate the power of Freedom of Speech to stop bullying. In each video scene, I first try to deny the other person Freedom of Speech; the second time I grant them Freedom of Speech.
The following is a scene in which a student is cursing a teacher: How Should Teacher Handle Being Bullied
The following is a medley of scenes of people calling me idiot (it would work with any other insult): The Idiot Game
I hope you are getting an increased appreciation for Freedom of Speech. If society were to spend a fraction of the time and effort teaching the meaning and practice of Freedom of Speech that it does fighting for anti-bully laws, we would achieve a greater reduction in bullying and a greater increase in tolerance and harmony than we can ever hope to achieve through the most intensive anti-bully laws!
Have a Happy Fourth of July!
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Here are some more great quotations on Freedom of Speech:
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. - John Milton
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. - Noam Chomsky
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. - Adlai E. Stevenson
A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything. - Napoleon Bonaparte
The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. - Eleanor Holmes Norton
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdi
(I thank nonstopenglish.com for access to these quotations.)
